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Discover the latest advances carbon capture and storage research
This technical review is part of the IEAGHG concern on CCS in the industrial sector, where we have covered several industries and technical aspects through our previous reports. We will continue monitoring this sector and the forthcoming developments on CCS systems.
This workshop came about to address a recommendation from the CSLF on offshore CCS. This 3rd International Workshop on Offshore CCS took place on 3-4 May, organised by the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) in collaboration with IEAGHG and others, and hosted by the Research Council of Norway in Oslo, with support from SANEDI and CSLF.The aim of the workshop series is to facilitate sharing of knowledge and experiences among those who are doing offshore storage and those who are interested, and to facilitate international collaboration on projects. Over 60 attendees from 8 countries participated in this 3rd workshop.The agenda included: How to learn from learnings?; Value Chains for Offshore; Infrastructure re-use; Monitoring offshore CO₂ storage/EOR; Offshore CO₂ storage resource assessment; Project updates; Standards and Regulatory Frameworks; and Brainstorming towards an international collaborative project.
Our recent study ‘Case Studies of CO₂ Storage in Depleted Oil and Gas Fields’ (2017-01) concluded that CO₂ storage in depleted fields would not only be viable with potentially lower risk but could also be relatively cost effective, providing important intermediate-scale storage resources. The report highlighted that re-using an O&G fields would be beneficial as “there would likely be cost savings over saline aquifer sites, particularly in the characterisation stages (where there is the advantage of production history and proved hydrocarbon retention to reduce uncertainty in containment and capacity)”.
In recent years, IEAGHG has published several studies that address the application of CCS to coal and natural gas-fired power plants. The studies are based on a hypothetical site in the Netherlands. However, while Europe may be one region where large-scale power plants with CCS are built, there is even greater potential for CCS in regions where coal consumption is high and increasing or where emission reduction targets would require CCS to also be considered for gas-fired power stations. While very often, the cost of CO₂ capture is cited as a single value or as a range, the performance and costs of plants with CO₂ capture will be different at different locations – and there is currently a shortage of information calculated on a consistent basis, particularly for emerging economies.The key factors that influence the costs of capture, how these vary regionally and how the costs of capture varies regionally would be of enormous interest. For many, greater granularity in the regional differences in costs would be of value. For countries, such information could help them develop their national and international energy policy to greater effect, particularly where it relates to CCS. Similarly, industry could better identify markets and better target its spend on technology development and deployment. Incomplete information can lead to flawed analysis and result in poorer decision making. Considering these matters, the IEAGHG ExCo felt a study to investigate how the cost of CO₂ capture varied for different locations was warranted. Following a competitive tender, Amec Foster Wheeler (now Wood Group), Milan, were commissioned to undertake the study.
The purpose of the CCS Cost Workshops is to share and discuss the most currently available information on the cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in electric utility and industrial process applications, as well as the outlook for future CCS costs and deployment. The workshop also seeks to identify other key issues or topics related to CCS costs that merit further discussion and study.
Over recent years, interest in CO₂ capture and utilisation (CCU) from policy-makers, industry and academics has increased dramatically, although uncertainty remains regarding the technology’s true potential to contribute towards wider greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals. A range of views have been expressed in these contexts, but on the whole it remains largely speculative and unproven. Consequently, it is difficult to provide firm opinions on whether CCU technologies can make a meaningful and lasting contribution to tackling climate change. This report provides an assessment of the range of views presented by various stakeholders, and attempts to establish an empirical evidence base upon which to qualify the views and opinions expressed.Additionally, the key way to gain a clearer understanding of the potential for CCU technologies to reduce GHG emissions is to assess the overall energy and carbon balances for different CCU processes, and to take a view on how and whether these could make a contribution to GHG emission reductions. In other words, as noted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2005 Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (SRCCS) ‘further study of the net energy and CO₂ balance of industrial processes that use the captured CO₂ could help to establish a more complete picture of the potential of this option’. Such detailed studies have, at best, only partially been carried out and are heavily reliant on the assumptions made in the analysis. Thus, IEAGHG has commissioned Carbon Counts (UK) Ltd to characterise CCU technologies, as well as their policy support, regulation and emissions accounting.
It is widely considered that deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) for clusters of energy intensive industries (EIIs) will become vital for meeting long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, and is a cost effective way for doing so, according to organisations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In addition, it will be important to develop the related finance mechanism quickly to prevent carbon leakage, i.e. businesses transferring operations to places with less stringent GHG emission standards. Recent evidence highlights there might be different needs and challenges in deployment of industrial clusters, compared to those involving power generation. IEAGHG’s Technical Report 2015/03 “Carbon capture and storage cluster projects: review and future opportunities” reviews 12 CCS cluster projects and finds that the most successful clusters are currently based on CO₂-EOR in North America. This is to be expected as EOR provides a commercial benefit to investors in such activities.Further requirements for ICCS clusters include: generating confidence for per-investment in CCS infrastructure, new methods to attract international investment and systematic development of CCS cluster business plans. However, more information is necessary regarding the transferability of conclusions for CCS clusters based on power generation incentives, such as a UK Contract for Difference (CfD), to those involving multiple industry sectors, and especially EIIs.This study examines the economic and commercial arrangements needed to enable the global deployment of industrial CCS clusters. Over a period of eight months, with significant input from stakeholders from industry, government and the investment community, the project has identified the key enablers to unlock private investment in ICCS and developed four business models, which are expected to work in various regions around the world including North America, Europe, Australia and China.
A key determinant for CO₂ storage in deep saline formations (DSFs) is dynamic efficiency (E factor) – that is the effect that increased pressure caused by fluid injection has on the storage capacity of a formation. The storage capacity will always be limited by the pressure limit imposed by the geomechanical strength of the caprock, which is defined as the fracture pressure. If a formation is bounded by faults or other low permeability barriers, then excess pressure could limit the dynamic efficiency, a condition referred to as a closed boundary. In contrast formations that extend over several 100 square kilometres without significant barriers can enable pressure to be dissipated, a condition known as an open boundary. In a previous study commissioned by IEAGHG the effects of dynamic efficiency were compared between two contrasting onshore basins (one open and the other closed), but over a long hypothetical time-scale of 2,000 years. Although the previous study showed the effects of boundary conditions, the dynamic efficiency was based on very large areas extending of several thousands of square kilometres. The results did not reflect the more likely conditions of much shorter timescales and injection over limited areas that would be experienced in early CO₂ storage sites. The aim of this second study is to improve the estimated dynamic storage of DSFs based on a modelled 50 year injection period and over comparatively limited areas of ~1,000 km2. Two well researched formations were selected: one from an onshore basin (the Minnelusa Formation in the USA) and the other form an offshore basin (the Bunter Formation in the North Sea). This study also includes a cost development model to determine how the number of wells affects the cost-effectiveness of each storage site.
The study was designed to investigate the value of flexible CCS-equipped power plants to the UK’s electricity system. The value used, the System Value (or SV), is a metric that quantifies the benefit, i.e. the reduction in total system cost, of adding a unit of a particular technology to the electricity grid. To operate effectively, an electricity grid must not only have adequate generating capacity to meet demand but also have reliable reserve generation capacity (e.g. as back-up for outages) and sufficient system inertia (for frequency control). While supply-side (e.g. energy storage) or demand-side (e.g. energy efficiency) mechanisms may offer alternatives to grid expansion, adding new capacity remains a central requirement for any grid, e.g. as power plants are retired and/or demand increases. Since not all technologies provide the same services to the grid, the value of adding a unit of a particular technology will be a function, at any given time, not just of the incremental increase in power demand that it may satisfy but also of the characteristics of the technologies already connected.
The theme for this meeting was ‘The Cost and Value-effectiveness of Monitoring: what key drivers are required to deliver an optimum outcome’. Sessions included project updates, the application of oil and gas production experience, innovative monitoring techniques, offshore monitoring developments, overburden research including controlled release experiments, wellbore integrity and micro-seismicity. Delegates also took part in a group exercise on how to respond to a hypothetical leak scenario. The meeting highlighted the impressive advances that have been made in the use of fibre-optic distributed acoustic sensors (DAS) at projects, including helical configured cables, to overcome the limitations of directional signals. The technology is now under trial at pilot CO<sub>2</sub> storage sites.
The aim of this study was to characterise key countries and regions worldwide where carbon capture and storage (CCS) could play an important role in mitigation efforts, based on national circumstances and priorities. An additional objective was to identify how international frameworks, such as the UNFCCC, can support CCS and what these new architectures would mean with respect to development of nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
This report documents the subsurface processes that may enable CO₂ to potentially migrate from the storage reservoir to within the overburden sequence. The potential rates of migration for each migration pathway and the implications for leakage are discussed. Secondary trapping mechanisms within the overburden are also discussed within the report. The conclusions are focused on tying overburden characteristics to their impact on developing risk assessments. As well as specific pathway structures, five CO₂ storage projects were selected for this review and the characteristics of the overburden sequence that promote trapping and hinder migration at each site are a summarised. The projects chosen were the offshore Sleipner and Snøhvit CO₂ storage projects, the planned storage site in the Goldeneye Field, the onshore Ketzin pilot CO₂ injection project in Germany and the Field Research Station in Canada.
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